When young women around London turn up murdered and missing one finger, Scotland Yard assumes it is the work of a madman. Holmes, however, is not convinced and deduces that criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty (Henry Daniell) is somehow involved, even though he was reportedly hanged in Montevideo, Uruguay. A series of clues ultimately lead Holmes and Watson to a society of hypnotists and a mysterious, glamorous woman (Hillary Brooke) dressed in green. This 1945 film is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Empty House.

Between 1939 and 1945, Universal Pictures filmed 14 Sherlock Holmes mysteries starring Philip St. John Basil Rathbone as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective and William Nigel Bruce as his faithful sidekick Dr. Watson. All but two of the films were "updated" to World War II England and often included Axis spies or saboteurs as antagonists. Each movie has been lovingly restored by the UCLA Theatre Archives from 35 mm master copies into a digital format and may be viewed in either colorized versions or in the original black and white.